While I’d ‘invented’ the soul-fractal method of cheating the iron-body technique, I hadn’t been the one to truly shake it down for rent. That was Kidra’s field of expertise.

She’d tried to explain what exactly she did to make it so effective, except I didn’t have quite that intimate understanding of combat itself as a concept.

When we made tests, we found we could see different kinds of concepts. For example, I would get vague understandings of engineering concepts within items, while Kidra would see absolutely nothing in the same piece of environmental suit. It opened up a lot of interesting questions about how different people saw through the soul-sight. Which made me think the soul-sight had more to do with the concepts as seen through the mind’s interpretation.

So - figuring out what someone was planning on doing based on the soul-sight was something I wasn’t anywhere in the realm of being able to pull off.

That said, the general concept of ‘relic knight’ was something I was familiar with. And there just so happened to be one, directly in front of me.

To his credit, the moment I turned my blade off, Ikusari got the picture and followed suit himself, vanishing into the darkness. What he didn’t know was that he’d remained perfectly visible to my senses. Specifically the occult ones he had no idea I possessed.

When he lunged right at where he thought I’d be - expecting me to have backpedaled directly backwards - he struck through nothing but cascading snow. I’d seen the concept of him moving around, and easily took a few steps to my side, letting him speed past me.

His blade whistled out, occult blue appearing a fraction of a second before the actual strike. My own blade lit up and I lunged out after him, being disappointed when I realized the angle of my blade had been in his peripheral vision, and so his own reflex snapped down a defense with an instant riposte back, the moment he saw the glow through the sheet of snow.

Given he wasn’t actively breaking down my technique anymore nor leading me into traps, I managed my own belated defense, using bits of Nagareru to transition easily into a retreat, turning off my blade and disappearing into the darkness.

“Can his armor see me?” I asked Cathida.

“Oh heavens no, you think Journey can’t read the mood? It’s doing all it can to keep signatures down to a minimum. Unfortunately, your little friend here also has armor that’s doing the exact same thing to us.”

“Any advice?”

“Don’t get hit.” She cackled. “And if you win, make sure to gloat about it.”

“I don’t know why I even asked.” I grumbled, taking steps to circle around the enemy.

The shadowsong prime had chosen to remain exactly in his same spot. I couldn’t quite see his detailed movements, the soul-sense only showed a ‘blob’ of a concept - relic knight, human, sword, armor and a small hoard of smaller concepts that I realized were the decorations on his armor when I focused on them more.

It felt more akin to a sonar of some kind, where my enemy appeared as a dot who’s location I could track, if not what they looked like or were doing in detail.

Beggars can’t be choosers. I slowly circled around to his back, hoping he hadn’t turned around on himself in the meantime.

A flash of light stopped me in my tracks, a bright, white light that instantly illuminated the surroundings. A massive crack of thunder happened simultaneously, but my attention was less on the noise and more on backpedaling frantically as an irate relic knight instantly turned and struck out at my now revealed location. his armor's headlights lit up right as his blade did, illuminating a hands stretch ahead of him, before the billowing cloud of white snow swallowed up the world.

It was just enough light to reveal me.

I blocked and parried a few hits before turning off my blade, dodging his own slash, and diving to the ground for cover. Rolling away back into the safety of darkness, out of his helmet light's range.

My enemy's signatures winked out, both the armor's headlights and his occult blade.

“An interesting game, Winterscar.” The prime said, voice making it through my comms. “Do you really believe this will give you the edge you need to win? The lightning in this storm is inevitable.”

I switched the comms frequency and replied. “Working out so fa-”

He turned, helmet lights flashing on once more, and struck right where I’d been slowly approaching from. It came out as wide swinging attacks that weren't from any school of combat I knew of. He continued to scythe through the air as I backpedaled, having an easier time dodging the searching strikes since they were telegraphed enough from the glow of his blade.

His helmet lights must have caught a brief reflection of relic armor silver, because he suddenly turned and made a far more purposeful strike in my direction.

I was forced to turn on my sword to block. That was a second mistake as his movements instantly snapped back into a combat stance from Makiskeru - hyper aggression at all costs. He’d been swinging wildly to bait me out, and now that I’d triggered my blade, he was using my sword glow as a marker for where I truly was. His own blade whipped through the air, unerringly striking out at me with such fury and speed I had no chance to turn off my sword and slink back into the darkness.

The man had bit down on bone and he wasn’t letting go for any reason. Another flash of lighting struck out, lighting up the scene, giving him more information to work with. Chipping away at my defense and keeping me pinned into the fight. A few times I tried to dodge while simultaneously turning off my sword, only to be forced to turn it right back on as his strikes continued and anticipated where my body mass would have to be, making use of the brief moments we came close enough for his helmet lights to illuminate me.

Kidra was my saving grace here and training with her was the only reason I managed to survive that particular bout. She’d often told me the weaknesses in each combat school, and with Makiskeru being one of her favorites, there wasn’t any lack of practice there.

By sheer gods damned chance, Ikusari repeated a set of patterns Kidra had previously explained in depth. I saw the expected hole she'd shown me and took it, striking back and forcing him to dodge the attack, aborting his own.

Now this is the part I thought I was clever on. I’d already assumed he’d somehow find a way of foiling my attack, so midway through the strike I’d pre-committed to turning off the blade and twisting away into the darkness. A plan that worked out perfectly, leaving me slinking back into the cold embrace of pitch darkness, far out of reach from his light, all with the howling snow obfuscating my footfalls.

His blade remained active, moving slowly around him, outlining his turning helmet as he searched through for where I’d gone. It looks like he’d already guessed I had some method of tracking him, so trying to hide in the darkness was a moot point. “This will not last forever.” He taunted. “I need only wait for the next lightning strike. And this time, I won’t make a mistake again.”

“That’s bait.” Cathida said. “Definitely bait. But you do you deary, go on and run your mouth at him again. It'll be fun.”

Last time it had been obvious he’d used the direction of my comms to strike at, sniffing around with wide swings until I’d revealed myself. Fool me once and all that.

I made my way around, watching him the whole time. his helmet lights winked out, his sword reached further away from his body, the glow no longer revealing any other part of his armor. He was getting ready for me to come to him, and making sure I wouldn't know which direction he was facing.

He was right on one item: It was inevitable for another one of those blasted lightning strikes to pop up and reveal my location. All functioning surface structures had lightning rods for a reason.

My feet moved with a mission across the terrain and I took my chance. He’d made it easy by not turning off his sword.

Which I should have considered suspicious in hindsight, but my weasel brain only saw a quick win. So I made an excellent impression of a fly zooming right into a light trap, when I belatedly realized he’d crouched down the entire time. Leaving his sword high up in the air, angled to appear as if he were standing up instead, and keeping his eyes peeled out for my inevitable attempt to stab him right in the back like a true Winterscar.

The moment he spotted my blade turned on, he flicked his leg out for a sweep, catching me right in the middle of tapping out where his torso should have been. It connected, sending me tumbling down, and my recovery roll barely managed to get me through. I didn’t bother trying to stop my momentum, instead speeding up and diving forward as I heard the tell-tale sound of an occult blade whizzing through the air a few times behind me.

In a feat of desperate inspiration, I threw my blade to the side while I dove to the opposite, fooling him for a fraction of a second into following the glowing blade. Pulling his own trick against him in a way. I could see his helmet's lights flicker after the glowing blade for a half second, which was just enough time to get out of range. His follow-up sword slices were blind and far off their mark as I slunk back into the darkness to plot and scheme.

Here’s the issue: I didn’t have my reserve knife on me. For good reason - it was still in pieces back in my sanctum, the exposed hilt well hidden alongside Talen’s book and Tsuya’s seeker. No way was I going to walk around with an exposed blade that could reveal the secrets like that.

Which meant I had no means of fighting back, now that I’d ditched my sword. The longsword had zipped through the air, before landing down into the ground, submerged up to the hilt. Shadowsong made quick work reaching the last known location, and ripping the weapon out of the ground, now wielding both his own longsword and mine.

I had no weapons and time was ticking down to the next lighting strike, where he’d almost certainly end the fight the moment he found me.

Shadowsong had thirty seven percent of his shields left. In occult blade terms, that’d be one single slice away from the twenty percent mark or outright overloading the shield. In normal physics terms, it was a massive immovable wall. Bullets wouldn’t even trigger the shields, and punching him with the full might of Journey would drain only a few percentages with each hit. More than enough time for him to land one tap on me in the exchange.

So I needed an Occult blade or I’d have to declare forfeit. Which was unacceptable to me, because I wanted to win. I’d been pushed around my entire life, and for the first time I felt I had power - real genuine power. There was a thirst in me to prove to myself. And if there was any one time for this, it was here and now.

It drove me to look for solutions. There were exactly two ways I could think of getting a blade in my hand. Three ways if I counted asking politely for my blade back, but I doubted that plan had much of a success rate.

Knights almost always had a reserve knife in their boot or on their chest. A wealthy one like Shadowsong would absolutely have a spare. I just needed to find where it was, pickpocket it, and then slice away at the bastard. That’s plan A.

He wasn’t guarding the knife, clearly expecting me to use my own reserve knife instead, not realizing I didn't have one on me. Which still meant he was expecting some kind of knife to his back, albeit not his own.

There was plenty of scrap metal that littered the ground by the base of the clan habitat. Leftovers from past insulation patch jobs, or older expansions. I could dig something out, rip it apart with Journey, and then create a throwaway occult blade just for this as plan B.

That said, if I did that, I’d be revealing my cards to Shadowsong and that wasn’t a step I was willing to take just yet.

So, stealing his knife was the current plan.

I snuck around, searching with my soul-sense to spot where the concept of an occult knife would be among the many concepts floating around his location. I spotted it shortly enough. It was low to the ground, that ruled out the chest holster, which meant the blade was in one of his boots.

He wasn’t moving, instead keeping his attention primed for any sign of an attack. He expected I’d draw out the knife and strike out.

I slowly advanced towards him, crouched. Closer and closer in the pitch darkness. The sound of the snowstorm buried any of my own sounds, even I couldn’t hear the snow crunching under my feet.

Step by step I advanced until I was right upon him. My right hand reached out blindly into that darkness, stretching out for where the concept of a relic knife lay.

And then the lightning stuck.

The world was lit up once more. I made a desperate lunge for his knife, grabbing the hilt, pressing the activation switch. It lit up right inside the sheath, cutting straight through as I slid it out.

At the same time, he’d spotted me as well. His own right hand flicked out like a snake, tip of his sword tapping my shoulder in a quick down and up movement that sapped away another thirteen percent of my shields right then and there, taking me down far past the twenty percent mark.

We stayed frozen in that moment of light. Both of us having made our final moves.

Shadowsong’s armor and my own turned on their helmet lights, illuminating the pitch darkness once more.

“It seems this match is at an end.” Shadowsong said as he looked down at his ruined knife holster.

I rose back up myself, turning his knife off. Extending the hilt back at him. He nodded, doing the same with my own occult longsword.

“I expected you to attack with your own knife. I didn’t expect you to try to steal my own. Winterscars. Always dramatic in everything you do.”

“You talk a lot of smack for someone that went on a murderous rampage just a moment ago.” I shot back.

He hummed in thought at that. “So it is. I thought of myself as a disciplined soldier above such base thoughts. It seems in the end there are still things in this world I care too much about." He stood taller, taking a deep breath before continuing. "I was blinded by hate and rage and old history. I jumped to the worst conclusion, taking it for fact. Had you not been given the chance to display your skills, you would be dead at my feet and the clan would have been greatly weakened for it. I owe you remediation. We will speak and settle on the price of penance later.”

He reached out a hand, and I clasped it back. Journey showed me on my HUD, his shield health was hovering at exactly eighteen percent. I’d sliced through the knife holster, and skimmed the side of his shields instantly after. The little tap and slide had done enough damage.

He turned to square me up, then inclined his head in a short bow. “My armor confirms its shields passed the twenty percent mark a scant moment before your own did.” Shadowsong said, “You fought well. I accept my defeat."

- A taste of blood (T)